Bardell against Pickwick: the Trial

He does not listen. He gets Mr Phunky's name wrong, writing him down as Mr Monkey, and observes that he never had the pleasure of hearing the gentleman's name before.

He sleeps. When Buzfuz pauses for breath, the silence wakes the judge, who "immediately wrote down something with a pen without any ink in it, and looked unusually profound, to impress the jury with the belief that he always thought most deeply with his eyes shut". At the end of Buzfuz's speech, Dickens notes in six words that Buzfuz sat down "and Mr Justice Stareleigh woke up".

The jury

Only ten special jurymen attend, so Buzfuz prays a tales and two common jurymen are pressed in: Richard Upwitch, a greengrocer, and Thomas Groffin, a chemist. The chemist warns the court, before being sworn, that there will be murder before the trial is over, because he has left nobody but an errand boy in his shop, and the boy believes Epsom salts means oxalic acid and syrup of senna means laudanum.

Why Dickens puts this in. A man's whole fortune is about to be decided by twelve men, two of whom are there by accident, one of whom is thinking about poison.

The staging of the plaintiff

Mrs Bardell is led in "in a drooping state", supported by Mrs Cluppins. Dodson hands in an extra-sized umbrella and Fogg a pair of pattens, "each of whom had prepared a most sympathising and melancholy face for the occasion". Master Bardell is placed on the floor of the court in front of his mother, in what Dickens calls "a commanding position in which he could not fail to awaken the full commiseration and sympathy of both judge and jury".

Perker's whispered comment is the key to the whole chapter: "Capital fellows those Dodson and Fogg; excellent ideas of effect, my dear Sir, excellent."

Serjeant Buzfuz's speech

How it opens. He has never in his whole professional experience approached a case with feelings of such deep emotion, and could never have supported the responsibility were he not sustained by a certainty that the cause of truth and justice must prevail with the high-minded and intelligent dozen of men before him. Dickens notes drily that counsel begin this way because it puts the jury on the best terms with themselves, and that several jurymen at once began taking voluminous notes.

The devices, and you should be able to name them.

The line MU quotes. The paper of February 2026 printed this and asked for the speaker and the damages demanded.

Damages, gentlemen, heavy damages is the only punishment with which you can visit him; the only recompense you can award to my client.

The answer is Serjeant Buzfuz, and the damages were laid at fifteen hundred pounds.

The witnesses

Mrs Cluppins. Admits she was in the back room "unbeknown to Mrs Bardell", having gone in to say good morning, and heard voices. Asked whether she listened, she replies with dignity that she would scorn the action and that the voices forced themselves upon her ear. The judge is puzzled by "on the jar" and has to be told it means partly open, then says he will make a note of it. Snubbin does not cross-examine, because Pickwick wishes it stated that her account is in substance correct.

Mrs Sanders and the Pickwickians. Winkle is examined by Skimpin and made to look ridiculous, and his evidence, that he saw Mrs Bardell in Pickwick's arms, is technically true and completely misleading.

Sam Weller. Called by the plaintiff, and the best thing in the chapter. Asked whether he remembers going to Mrs Bardell's house in November, he says he went to pay the rent but they did get talking about the trial. Invited to say what passed, he obliges.

they said what a wery gen'rous thing it was o' them to have taken up the case on spec, and to charge nothing at all for costs, unless they got 'em out of Mr. Pickwick.

Dodson and Fogg turn red and whisper to Buzfuz, who announces that it is useless to try to get at evidence through the impenetrable stupidity of this witness and tells him to stand down. Sam asks whether any other gentleman would like to ask him anything. Dickens's own summary is that Sam went down "after doing Messrs. Dodson & Fogg's case as much harm as he conveniently could, and saying just as little respecting Mr. Pickwick as might be, which was precisely the object he had had in view all along."

The defence, the summing-up and the verdict

The defence. Snubbin makes a long and emphatic speech praising Pickwick's character and argues that the letters relate to Pickwick's dinner and to preparations for receiving him on his return. Dickens declines to report it, on the ground that his readers can judge Pickwick better than Snubbin could. That refusal is itself a comment: the defence is true and unmemorable, and the case has already been decided by rhetoric.

The summing-up. Stareleigh reads as much of his notes as he can decipher at short notice and comments as he goes. Dickens reduces it to a circle: if Mrs Bardell were right, it was perfectly clear that Mr Pickwick was wrong, and if they thought Mrs Cluppins's evidence worthy of credence they would believe it, and if they didn't, why, they wouldn't.

The verdict. The jury retire; the judge retires to a mutton chop and a glass of sherry. After a quarter of an hour they find for the plaintiff, with damages of seven hundred and fifty pounds.

Immediately afterwards. Pickwick meets Dodson and Fogg in a side room while Perker pays the court fees, and tells them that not one farthing of costs or damages will they ever get from him if he spends the rest of his existence in a debtor's prison. Dodson laughs and says he will think better of it before next term.

The last line of the chapter. Tony Weller, Sam's father, shakes his head and delivers the popular verdict on the whole proceeding.

Oh, Sammy, Sammy, vy worn't there a alleybi!

How to write "Critically examine the trial"

Your position. That the trial is technically regular and substantially worthless: the forms are all observed, and nothing that decides it has anything to do with what happened in Goswell Street.

Paragraph one. Say what the action is and how it ends.

Paragraph two. The evidence. There is one embrace, seen by the defendant's friends, and two notes about dinner. Nothing else. Neither party gives evidence, because at this date the parties to a civil action could not be witnesses in their own cause, which is why the case is fought entirely on inference.

Paragraph three. The advocacy. Buzfuz's method, with two or three devices named from the table above.

Paragraph four. The court. A judge who sleeps, a jury made up in part by a tales, and a summing-up that decides nothing.

Paragraph five. The attorneys, and Sam Weller's answer about "on spec". This is the point at which a critical answer becomes an argument rather than a description.

Conclusion. That Dickens's target is not the rules but the gap between the dignity of the forms and the interests actually being served, and that the proof is what happens next: the successful plaintiff ends up in the Fleet at her own attorneys' suit.

What beginners get wrong

They retell the speech and stop. The speech is one paragraph of an answer. The evidence, the court and the attorneys are the rest.

They say Pickwick was found guilty. It is a civil action. He was found liable and damages were awarded against him.

They omit Sam Weller's evidence. It is the moment the novel tells you what the case is really about.

They think the judge decides the case. The jury decides it. Stareleigh's contribution is a summing-up that leaves them exactly where they were.

A worked answer

Question. "Critically examine the trial of Bardell against Pickwick." The opening and the plan.

Opening paragraph. The trial of Bardell against Pickwick is procedurally regular and substantially worthless. Every form is observed: a special jury is empanelled, a tales is prayed when only ten attend, counsel open and reply, witnesses are examined and cross-examined, and the judge sums up. Nothing that decides the case has any connection with what happened in Goswell Street, and this answer argues that Dickens's target is precisely that gap between the dignity of the forms and the interests they serve.

The plan of the rest. One paragraph on the evidence: a single embrace seen by the defendant's own friends and two notes about dinner, with neither party competent to testify. One on Buzfuz's method, naming three devices. One on the court itself, the sleeping judge, the accidental jurymen and the circular summing-up. One on Sam Weller's answer about the case being taken on speculation. One on what happened afterwards, since the successful plaintiff ended in the Fleet at her own attorneys' suit. A conclusion in the words of the question.

The sentence to end on. A verdict that sends the winner to prison is the strongest evidence available about whose action it really was.

Quick revision

Fourteenth of February, at the Guildhall, before Mr Justice Stareleigh.

Perker's rule: hungry jurymen find for the plaintiff.

Ten special jurymen, a tales prayed, a greengrocer and a chemist pressed in.

Staging: the umbrella, the pattens, the child on the floor of the court.

Buzfuz: flattery, pathos, the placard, the serpent and the mine, "systematic villainy", chops and tomato sauce, the warming-pan, and "heavy damages".

Witnesses: Mrs Cluppins, Mrs Sanders, Winkle, and Sam Weller, whose "on spec" answer wrecks the attorneys.

Snubbin's defence is not reported. The summing-up is a circle. Verdict for the plaintiff, seven hundred and fifty pounds.

Test yourself

1. What are the damages laid at, and what does the jury award? Laid at fifteen hundred pounds. Awarded, seven hundred and fifty.

2. Name three of Buzfuz's rhetorical devices with an example of each. Flattery of the jury, in his opening about the high-minded and intelligent dozen; false pathos, in describing Mr Bardell as gliding imperceptibly from the world when he was in fact killed with a quart-pot; and supplying a meaning to an innocent document, in his reading of the warming-pan note.

3. Why can neither Pickwick nor Mrs Bardell give evidence? Because at this period the parties to a civil action were not competent witnesses in their own cause. That is why the whole case is built on inference from other people's observations and from two notes.

4. What does Sam Weller reveal, and why does Buzfuz stop questioning him? That Dodson and Fogg took the case on speculation and would charge nothing for costs unless they got them out of Mr Pickwick. Buzfuz stops because every further question invites more damage, and covers the retreat by calling the witness impenetrably stupid.

5. What is Dickens's real target in this chapter? Not the rules of procedure, which are followed, but the distance between the solemnity of the forms and the interests they actually serve. The judge sleeps, the jury is half accidental, the advocacy is performance, and the attorneys are running the case for their own costs.